


Fallout

by rankarana



Category: Touhou Project
Genre: F/F, Post-SA, tw for disfigurement and casual ableist language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-27
Updated: 2015-11-27
Packaged: 2018-05-03 16:29:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5298305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rankarana/pseuds/rankarana
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Utsuho isn’t fully prepared for the reality of what her arm has become beneath the Third Leg, and she’s even more worried that Rin won't be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fallout

The homemade control rod/nuclear cannon, after several painstaking hours of tinkering, finally comes loose, and slips off Okuu’s arm with a surprising amount of ease – but then again, how hard  _could_ it have been to remove a makeshift piece of technology the raven had put together in the basement of Chireiden? Marisa had at first suggested just hitting it until it came off, but after she had been outvoted and restrained, Nitori decided it was best to treat it with care. The girl has swallowed a god, after all, and  the  _thing_  on her arm, even if it seemed surprisingly dormant and stable for a weapon of mass destruction, probably wasn’t something to mess around with too lightly.

“See? No amputations necessary. Told you,” Nitori murmurs as she starts to put away her tools. Marisa had been oddly disappointed when she’d first heard that would be the case. “We’ll save the leg for another day, I guess?” From how the raven has had her eyes squeezed tightly shut for the entirety of the last few hours, constantly fidgeting and squirming in her seat, she assumes Okuu is not particularly enthusiastic about continuing right now.

Utsuho shakes her head. She’s already made up her mind to keep the stone cast on, both for safety’s sake and as an act of penance for nearly blowing up Gensokyo; and this had seemed all well and good and  _heroic_  until, opening her eyes again, she stares at the arm that had been under the cannon.

Yatagarasu screams.

* * *

“…It’s ugly, right?”

Satori, sipping at her tea, looks at the warped, blackened flesh, Okuu’s musculature very visible from how withered parts of her arm have become; red veins criss-cross the charcoal-like skin, and her hand is twisted into a claw, the tips of her fingers now more talons with a thin layer of what seems like  _feathers_  above her knuckles.

“I don’t mind it,” she states, and it is the utmost truth – Okuu doesn’t have to be a telepath to understand that.

“You don’t mind anything, Lady Satori.” The raven slumps over the table, currently wearing a perhaps  _overly_ conspicuous cloak in an attempt to conceal her arm. Part of her thinks that the ruined limb maybe a bit cool, if you catch it from the right angle – the veins glitter like rubies when she holds them up to the light, and, despite Nitori’s initial comments about necrosis, her muscles feel incredibly powerful. She’s already broken two of Satori’s teacups while chatting with her today just by holding them!

Apparently Satori can see this surge of pride inside Utsuho, and finds it naturally more charming than anything, reaching forwards to pat her pet on the head. “There, there. Remember, the Underworld rejects no-one.”

“Yeah…”

“If you’re alive, I don’t think she’ll care about whatever state you’re in, Utsuho. She’ll be much more annoyed if you try to  _avoid_ her over something like this.”

“Really…?” And Okuu knows it’s a dumb question to ask, considering that if anyone would know, it would of course be Lady Satori. She’s probably the one person who can speak with absolute authority on these kinds of matters.

“Yes,” Satori answers, and leaves it at that.

Utsuho stares at her long enough, desperate for an explanation but clearly trying to hold herself back enough that she doesn’t come off as too emotionally dense in front of Satori. This is an essentially futile exercise on more or less every level.

“You haven’t talked to her in a week, have you?”

“…noooo,” Okuu mumbles back, like a child reprimanded by her parent.

“And this is because you wanted to surprise her when your arm came back.”

“….mn.” Maybe her original fib to Rin that she was going up to the surface for a ‘business trip’ (not entirely untrue!) hadn’t been the strongest, but Utsuho still hadn’t been able to talk to her while she was away!

On the other hand, maybe actively hiding her presence from the cat for the last forty-eight hours and pretending that she hadn’t come back home hadn’t been the smartest idea, either. She really wished she was  _better_ at things like this.

“Sometimes I think you give Rin much less credit than you should,” Satori remarks, and then covers her mouth immediately in guilt when she sees how much those few words send Okuu into emotional spasms,  _worry_ emanating from the raven. Utsuho hates  _that_  most of all: the feeling that she’s somehow betrayed Rin, or not given her all the due care and attention she’s worth, especially now she realises that the gravedigger would genuinely  _die_ for her. Satori gets to her knees, and shuffles around their little table, drawing up to her precious pet’s side.

“Can I embrace you?”

“Mn.”

Surprisingly, despite barely coming up to Okuu’s chest, the mistress of Chireiden gives quite good hugs.

* * *

 

“Um.”

Utsuho has thrown the cape into the inferno below them (while Rin couldn’t stop herself from laughing a bit), and is now presenting the remnants of what was once a perfectly good arm to the redhead sitting before her.

“Oh. Ohhhh.” Rin looks at it, reaches up and grabs and tugs at Utsuho’s hand, pulling her down to sit next to her. “It didn’t get cut off, huh? That’s great!”

The way she puts it makes Utsuho worry that Rin kind of thinks it should have been, but her fears subside just a little when she realises Rin’s not letting go of her hand. Her initial reaction is, like whenever she (and especially when her— _new_ arm) is touched a little too suddenly, to squirm just a bit, until she feels comfortable again and tries explaining about the arm the best she can.

“So, uh… I guess the whole Third Leg kind of—messed it up. I mean, they don’t think it’s going to get any  _worse,_  but you can see it’s sort of… turned me back a bit. And it’s probably radioactive.But it’s not, like, infectious or anything! It doesn’t really work like that—“

“Wouldn’t care if it did,” Rin growls, taking hold of Okuu’s hand even more tightly, threading her fingers between the raven’s. “Plus I was at ground zero back then. If I _was_ gonna die of radiation poisoning or whatever, it would’ve happened already, right?”

“Maybe. Well, it’s kind of meant to be slow and painful, but you’d probably have had some symptoms by now!” Utsuho doesn’t know if this is exactly how she’s meant to reassure Rin, but the cat giggles, moving in to press a little tighter to the other girl, who jolts.

“—Oh. Is your arm still kinda sore?”

“Not really. It’s more like it’s really sensitive, like – it’s not like it hurts when you do that! It’s more that I can really feel it.” Maybe it’s just because she’s gotten so used to having her arm encased inside a giant cannon, or maybe it’s because she’s touching Rin again.

“Hmhm.” She giggles, looking up at Okuu and rubbing against her side some more, grinning at each of her girlfriend’s squawking giggles, the red trails on the arm _sparkling_ in the warm light of the Hell of Blazing Fires. Of course, Utsuho still feels pretty self-conscious about it, even if Rin doesn’t seem to mind at all – oversensitivity aside, she  _knows_  there’s something different about the sensation of touching Rin’s hand with her half-feathered, messed-up claw for both of them; she can’t clench as tight (at least, not yet) without fear of hurting her, she can’t trace little patterns on Rin’s hand, and the warmth of her hand feels so  _different_  – and that last one isn’t even bad, it’s simply  _strange_.

“Hey, Okuu.”

“What?”

“Your arm. It’s really—you.”

Okuu isn’t sure if this is a compliment or not, and she knows her expression right now looks just as confused. “…thanks! Maybe?”

“What I mean is that I think it’s totally cool.” And, to prove her point, Rin leans down and kisses it, light little pecks across Utsuho’s elbow, down her forearm, over the dark black and the glistening red, every one of them making Utsuho’s arm fizz and throb as if a hundred thousand million tiny particles were colliding, and ending with a kiss on the back of her hand—and then one more, a little lower, though even the raven can tell the cat isn’t exactly used to kissing feathers.

It’s not like she can think of a smart response to that, though. “…ah.”

“By the way, you’re really bad at lying. And hiding. All of that.” Rin looks just a little bit annoyed, though clearly she’s too amused to keep frowning at Utsuho.

“Oh, yeah. Sorry.”

“Nah, I get it. Or, well, no, I’d like you to tell me this stuff! But I know why you were freaking out, so… just tell me if your leg’s actually gone dead under there or whatever if you ever get that rock off,” Rin says, leaning against Okuu’s unscathed shoulder.

“Will do!”

She takes her chance, and squeezes Rin’s hand just a little tighter.


End file.
